The Three Emperors

Venice: Ethan Gage has escaped after surviving the naval battle of Trafalgar. His plan: to circumvent the French Empire and seek reunion with his wife and son by journeying north from Venice to Vienna and Prague, where he suspects she is searching for the fabled Brazen Head. Time is short. Ethan's enemy Catherine Marceau has warned him that Astiza may be burned as a witch if he can't rescue her in time. Before he can proceed further, however, Ethan must win a stake in a Venetian card game to give him adequate money to travel. In doing so, he earns the enmity of Baron Wolfgang Richter of the Austrian Empire, who cannot tolerate losing. Ethan eventually finds himself at odds with not just Marceau and Richter, but with Bishop Ernst Collerado, dispatched by the Vatican on rumors Gage and Astiza are seeking an object that is potentially heretical and evil. Gage seeks an unlikely ally in Jewish Napoleonic soldier Gideon Mandel, who Ethan befriends and who saves Ethan's life at Austerlitz. Gideon's father Aaron, a Jewish rabbi whose knowledge of legends of the Golem adds another layer to the hunt for the Brazen Head. Meanwhile, Astiza journeys through Prague, seeking clues as she goes and waiting for her husband to catch up, she has been imprisoned by a Bohemian alchemist who threatens to have her executed for heresy. Astiza tries to buy time for herself and her son Harry by promising to aid in experiments to find the Philosopher's stone, the age-old quest of the alchemists. The clock is ticking, as 'the Egyptian princess' is ordered to discover, or die while Ethan journeys through Europe trying to find her. Dietrich skillfully weaves a tale of intrigue and magic against the backdrop of Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech Republic-a mystical land that is forbidding and full of enchantment.